Sweets and parenting

I've been craving sweets lately. I have a pretty significant sweet tooth and then I looked at my Garmin period tracker and everything makes sense now. During the few days before my menstrual cycle, I want all the sweets. ALL OF THEM. In my belly. RIGHT THIS INSTANT. This is also the time where it's REALLY hard for me to keep my portion sizes in check because I'm constantly hungry. My mom and I went to Costco tonight and I had a food court hot dog and then I opened the popcorn we bought and snacked at the table. Then we got home and I ate crackers with dip. And I just finished another popcorn snack. Now, what I was more aware of was stopping with serving sizes that were far more reasonable than what I could have eaten. I counted out my crackers. I used a smaller bowl for my popcorn than I maybe would have historically and I didn't go back for seconds. So, winning?

Today I had my back pain resolving massage and did a walk with a friend and then another treadmill walk to watch the new episode of Only Murders in the Building. So, I moved my body today! I also had my first parent-teacher conference and cried almost immediately at the start of the meeting. Reyah's teacher literally started the conference with, "To start, do you have any questions for me?" And I just started crying and was like is she okay? Is our divorce harming her? I just want to know that that little girl is going to be alright. Raising kids is stressful! I'm constantly worried about how I might screw it up. I also had my first volunteer experience today, which further cemented the fact in my mind that teachers are fucking angels who are severely underpaid. I didn't manage to significantly embarrass Reyah, but will have another opportunity to do so next week, so we'll see!

Another old photo since I can't be bothered to photograph anything lately. aa

Fourth of July with the kiddos

Plus size shopping

I have a lot on my mind and nothing on my mind at about the same time. Over the past weekend, I've been searching for a suit to wear for upcoming residency interviews (so far, I've got 4 set up) and let me tell you: plus size shopping is no fun. It's hard to even find anything your size and when you do, it's not always what you'd like it to be. I found one contender on Sunday, but the jacket was quite short and I haven't been able to find many longer ones.

Today, after work, I watched some TV, did some apartment cleaning, and then headed to the mall to attempt to find a suit. I ended up at Kohl's and found something that was okay, but wasn't my favorite. It was my "at least I have something" suit. I'm going to head to the other mall tomorrow most likely to try my luck again. It's kind of disheartening though when the selection is so tiny.

This shopping problem of mine makes me both sad and serves as motivation. I'm sad because I'm large enough that I have trouble finding clothes and have so few options of shopping places. But it helps motivate me to lose the weight. That being said, I didn't hit the gym today because my knees have been giving me some trouble. Last week near the end of the week, they were pretty inflamed and then last night, I had trouble falling asleep because they were bothering me so much despite taking some ibuprofen. So, I thought today I'd give myself a gym pass and take it a bit easier - I'd do some walking at the mall and try to keep as active as possible at work. Today was also the first day of my period, which was what pushed me to take the day off.

Anywho, here are today's photos:

Breakfast

I made banana bread last night

Snacks and lunch: fiber bars, grapes, pretzels, turkey meatball, slice of banana bread, and apple

Today's positive: Not getting down on myself for not going to the gym and trying to stay active despite my knees hurting.

Tests and menstruation: a post with TMI

I am so ready to be done with two things: this test and menstrual cycles. As of today, I have one legit study day left and I'm so, so, so tired of studying. I'm doing fine on my question sets and I just don't want to study anymore. I'm over it. O. V. E. R. it. Last year when I was prepping for Step 1 (the first board exam on your way to be a doctor), I was freaking out all the time, crying, not sleeping, stressing to the max, and so on. This time around, I'm more chill. Why? Because I won't fail. I've studied a lot. I've put the things I'm being tested on into practice and can actually recall things because I've done them. So, we'll see how it goes. Also, Step 1 is basic science (read: basically useless) and this is practical stuff.

Also, today marked the first day of my period. Not cool. Kinda my fault though. I'm usually on a birth control pill (OCP). Why? Because it makes my periods 1000% better. I get diarrhea really bad the first day or two, cramp a bit, and bleed a lot. With OCPs, all these things disappear. But, I'd been noticing a bit of breakthrough bleeding with the last few cycles, so I wanted to do a reset and what better time than my month off, right? Wrong. Now I'm going to be bleeding during my 9 hour exam on Thursday (I just looked up how long it was going to be - I thought it was only going to be 8. Womp, womp). Awesome. So that means most of my break time will be spent rushing to the bathroom to make sure I'm not bleeding errwhere. Major bummer.

And it totally ruined my workout today. I was going to crank it up a notch (a.k.a. add 8 minutes to my normal elliptical routine), but after a half hour, I had to call it. I was cramping up like nobody's business and once I got home, my bum exploded. So, staying at the gym would have been a mistake.

In other news, taking ibuprofen for my cramps made my ankle feel better. So, that's an intelligent thing that I should have expected. Also, in other news, I made zucchini bread today because I really, really wanted something sweet. I'd been toying with the idea of making it but was afraid I'd binge and eat the whole loaf. So, I decided I'd head to the farmer's market to pick up some beans and then grab a cinnamon roll from Heaven/the Amish. The farmer's market was a bit bare today, likely due to impending thunder storms and the fact that it was Tuesday. Thus, no Amish. Thus, no baked goods for me. And I really effing wanted a cinnamon roll. So, instead, I came home and whipped up some zucchini bread. While it cooled, I hit the gym and was abused by my uterus and so I had a bit after my stomach calmed the eff down.

That's it. I gotta get back to hating my life/being bored forever studying. 

Photos for today:

Breakfast

Morning snack

Lunch - didn't want a sandwich, just the meat

Baking makes a mess

But then you get zucchini bread!

Dinner?

More salt for stomach settling

Another slice o' bread cuz it was gooooood

Bread for stomach settling

This is how we blog every night. Me in the lazy boy with my lazy boy

Today's positive: Listening to my body even though I wanted to keep going because I wanted a longer break and wanted to get a better workout in. Also, not eating the whole loaf of zucchini bread/not bingeing!

Not so much

Calorie accountability? Not so much. I've been going a tad overboard the last two days. I just want to eat everything. I blame menstruation. I'm not menstruating, but I'm going to and it's pretty normal for me to want to eat ALL THE THINGS the week before my period. Still, that's not really an excuse. I've got about 72 days until the wedding and I've gotta make some changes.

So, I'm going to bump up the blogs, take photos of everything I'm putting in my mouth. Well, minus the water. I'm also going to track, track, track. To be fair, I won't be starting this until Saturday. Tomorrow I am headed to East Lansing after work for some residency stuff and Friday is the residency fair. But Saturday, it's game on. So, get ready body! It's gonna be time to lose some weight!

Mangos and lady parts

Today started out rough. Like really rough. Why? Because it's day one of my period which means my uterus has recruited my intestines to put up a pretty intense fight to find their way outside of my body. It is not fun. I spend half the day writhing in agony because of cramps and the other half is spent in the bathroom because I get some awesome diarrhea. Yeah, yeah. That's an overshare, but since diarrhea is a topic that I'm sure I'll speak about in great lengths in my future career as a doctor, I may as well start now.

Anyway, I basically had a built-in excuse as to why I couldn't run my 5k today. But, I decided to head to the gym anyway. It was actually a bit of pain relief, but whoa man, did it hit me when I got home. I have a hard time getting myself to eat on days like these because of how gross I feel, but I had some ripe mangos so I decided to go a bit mango crazy and had some mango, mango juice, and pretzels for lunch.

After some studying, the pain became a bit too much and so I went to lay down and then fell asleep for about 2 hours. It was heavenly. Waking up to do more work? Not so much. I still felt sick, but I figured since I was home at dinner time (which rarely happens), I made some fish and beans. It was delicious and pretty healthy.

And I made enough fish for two more meals, so that's always nice. Anywho, I'm going to head back to bed again. I've got a lot to do tomorrow since today wasn't nearly as productive as it needed to be thanks to my lady parts.